Hieroglyphics Keyboard Online – Type Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Free Online Hieroglyphics Keyboard – Type Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Cartouches
Welcome to the hieroglyphics keyboard online — a free virtual keyboard for the Egyptian alphabetic signs in real Unicode. Keys map by sound: M gives 𓅓 the owl, N gives 𓈖 water, R gives 𓂋 the mouth, B gives 𓃀 the foot. Click the keys or type on your own keyboard, hold Shift for the second layer, then press Copy.
Wrap a name in a cartouche. The bracket keys give the two halves of the cartouche: [ for 𓍹 and ] for 𓍺. Open it, spell a name, close it, and the name is framed exactly as Egyptian scribes framed royal names. The cartouche is an elongated loop of rope, and enclosing a king's name in it marked protection and status.
These are the uniliteral signs. Egyptian had about two dozen single-consonant signs, the nearest thing the system has to an alphabet, and they are what this keyboard uses. Each carries a number in Gardiner's sign list, the standard catalogue from his 1927 grammar: 𓄿 is G1 the vulture, 𓃀 D58 the foot, 𓈖 N35 water.
The full script is far larger. Hieroglyphic writing mixes phonograms that spell sounds, ideograms standing for a thing, and determinatives that close a word to show its category without being pronounced. This keyboard gives the phonetic subset — enough for names and transcription, not the whole system.
The Shift layer. Signs with no matching Latin key sit on Shift: Shift+A gives 𓂝 the arm (ayin), Shift+H gives 𓎛 the wick, Shift+K gives 𓐍 the placenta (kh), Shift+X gives 𓄡 the belly, Shift+S gives 𓈙 the pool (sh), Shift+T gives 𓍿 the tether and Shift+D gives 𓆓 the cobra. Shift on the digits gives numerals: 𓏺 one, 𓎆 ten, 𓍢 hundred, 𓆼 thousand.
Egyptian wrote no vowels. Like the Semitic scripts it was related to, it records consonants and semi-vowels only. Egyptologists insert a conventional e when reading aloud, which is why nfr is said as nefer. Vocalisations of ancient names are reconstructions, not something the script recorded.
How we can read it at all. Hieroglyphs died out in late antiquity and were unreadable for over a thousand years. The Rosetta Stone, found in 1799, carried one decree in hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek, and in 1822 Jean-François Champollion showed the signs recorded sounds as well as ideas. For a name, see the name in hieroglyphics page or the runic keyboard.
Your privacy is guaranteed – all typing happens 100% locally in your browser. Nothing you write is sent to a server, stored, or logged.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I put a name inside a cartouche?
Press the left bracket key for 𓍹, spell the name with the sign keys, then press the right bracket key for 𓍺. That gives you the oval frame Egyptian scribes drew around royal names. Copy the whole string and it keeps the cartouche when pasted into a document or design.
What is on the Shift layer?
The signs with no matching Latin key. Shift+A gives 𓂝 the arm, Shift+H gives 𓎛 the wick, Shift+K gives 𓐍 the placenta, Shift+X gives 𓄡 the belly, Shift+S gives 𓈙 the pool, Shift+T gives 𓍿 the tether and Shift+D gives 𓆓 the cobra. Shift on the digits gives Egyptian numerals.
Is this translating my text into ancient Egyptian?
No. It transliterates, replacing each letter with the hieroglyph whose consonant sound is closest. Your words stay English and only the signs change. Real translation would require rendering the text in the Egyptian language, with its own vocabulary, grammar, ideograms and determinatives, which no letter mapping can do.
Why do I only see boxes instead of hieroglyphs?
Your device is missing a font for the Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphs block at U+13000. This page loads Noto Sans Egyptian Hieroglyphs, but older browsers and some phones may still fall back to boxes. Installing that free font locally fixes it, and the copied characters are correct in any case.
How do I write my name in hieroglyphics?
Spell it here sound by sound and wrap it in the bracket cartouche keys, or use the dedicated /name-in/hieroglyphs page, which converts a name in one step. Note that Egyptian wrote no vowels, so a name is normally represented by its consonants rather than its full English spelling.
What are uniliteral signs?
Hieroglyphs that stand for a single consonant, roughly two dozen of them, and the nearest thing Egyptian had to an alphabet. Scribes used them to spell foreign names and to clarify words, and Egyptologists use them as a teaching alphabet. They are the set this keyboard provides.
Why does the keyboard not have every hieroglyph?
Because there are far too many. Gardiner's standard sign list runs to around a thousand entries, and Unicode encodes more than that. A single physical keyboard cannot address them, so this layout gives the phonetic alphabet plus cartouches and numerals, which covers what most people need.
How do I type Egyptian numbers?
Hold Shift and use the first four number keys: Shift+1 gives 𓏺 for one, Shift+2 gives 𓎆 for ten, Shift+3 gives 𓍢 for one hundred and Shift+4 gives 𓆼 for one thousand. Egyptian numerals are additive, so you repeat a sign to build up a value.
Is this hieroglyphics keyboard free and private?
Yes on both counts. It costs nothing, needs no account and has no typing limit, and all processing happens locally in your browser with JavaScript. Nothing you type is sent to a server, stored or logged, so it is safe for personal notes as well as classroom and design work.
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